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SIXTSFNTII EDITION 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPAKT 



HE AND SHE 



A POET'S PORTFOLIO 



WW^ST 



^TORY 



BIXTBENTH EDITION 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

1892 






^■^^ 



Copyright, 1883, 
By WILLIAM W. STORY 



All rights reserved. 



48 65 55 

AUG 2 1942 



The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. i 
Printed by H. 0. Houghton & Company. 



.5-t + 



HE AND SHE; 

OR. A POET'S PORTFOLIO* 



He was in the habit of wandering alone, 
during the sununer mornings, through the 
forest and along the mountain side, and 
one of his favorite haimts was a pictur- 
esque glen, where he often sat for hours 
alone with nature, lost in vague contem- 
plation : now watching the busy insect 
life in the grass or in the air ; now listen- 
ing to the chirming of birds in the woods, 
the murmuring of bees hovering about 
the flowers, or the welling of the clear 
mountain torrent, that told forever its 
endless tale as it wandered by mossy 
boulders and rounded stones down to 
the valley below ; now gazing idly into 
the sky, against which the overhanging 
beeches printed their leaves in tessellated 



4 HE AND SHE; OR, 

light and dark, or vaguely watching the 
lazy clouds that trailed across the tender 
blue ; now noting in his portfolio some 
passing thought, or fancy, or feeling, 
that threw its gleam of light or shadow 
.across his dreaming mind. 

Here, leaning against one of the mossy 
boulders, in the shadow of the beeches, 
he was writing in his portfolio one sum- 
mer morning, when she accidentally found 
,him, and the following conversation took 
jplace : — 

She. Ah, here you are, sitting imder 
?this old beech and scribbling verses, as 
usual, are you not ? Why don't you rest 
;and lie fallow ? You are always working 
your brains. All work and no play — and 
you know the rest. Come, confess ! 

He. I confess, I can't help it. 

She. You can if you choose. 

He. But suppose I don't choose ; sup- 
pose it is my delight to do this. Nature 
is always teasing me to do something for 
her, — to dress her in verse, or in some 
shape or other of art ; and she has such 
subtle powers of persuasion that I cannot 
resist her. You know that in some ways 



A POET'S PORTFOLIO. 5 

you are her child, and I doubt if I could 
refuse you anything. 

She. Well, I take you at your word. 
Read me what you have written. 

He. It is only rubbish ; it is scarce 
worth your hearing. 

She. Let me be the judge. You have, 
I see, a book full of what you call rub- 
bish. You have promised me so often 
to read me some of your poems, and the 
time has now come to fulfill your prom- 
ise. Don't be shy. You know you want 
to read them to me. There never was a 
poet who did not like to read his verses. 

He. Not to everybody. 

She. Ah, then, you don't think me 
worthy to hear them. 

He. No ; I don't think them worthy to 
be heard by you. 

She. Nonsense! You like to read them ; 
I like to hear them. Here we are in 
this delightful glen; there is no one near 
to interrupt us; we have the whole day 
before us ; I have a piece of embroidery 
to occupy my hands; and I will promise 
to praise every poem you read. 

He. Then I won't read you a word of 
Anything I have here. 



6 HE AND SHE; OR, 

She. Oh, yes, you will. You know you 
wish me to praise them. What poet was 
ever willing to read his verses unless he 
expected or at least hoped to be praised ? 
Tou cannot pretend you wish me to crit- 
icise them and find fault with them. 

He. But I do; that is just what I 
should like. I should like to have an 
honest opinion, if I ever could get it; but 
that is of all things the most difficult tc 
obtain from any one. We always have 
either a friend who overpraises, or a critic 
who undervalues, or a brother-poet whose 
personality interferes with his judgment, 
or an indifferent person who does not take 
interest enough to have an opinion, or 
some one who is kneaded up of prose, 
and sees no reason for singing clothes, or 
— a fool. 

She. And in the last class are all, I 
suppose, who think your verses are poor 
stuff? 

He. I dare say there is something in 
that, and they may be right in their opin- 
ion, but of course we don't like it. 

She. Well, I don't come under any 
class you have mentioned, and I insist on 
hearing some of these verses. 



A POET'S PORTFOLIO. 7 

He. And you will be honest with me ? 

She. As honest as I dare to be with a 
poet who reads me his poems. Now be- 
gin. 

He. But really, I assure you, I have 
nothing here worth your listening to. 
This is only a book where I carelessly jot 
down whatever comes into my head just 
as it comes. It is full of first sketches, 
half-finished things, glimpses of thoughts 
or feelings or persons. They are not 
really poems. That is too high and hon- 
orable a name to give them. 

She. Ah, but that is just what I like to 
hear. It will be like looking over an ar- 
tist's sketch-book, where things are half 
done, just begun, altered, erased, outlmed, 
unframed, and these always have a pe- 
culiar charm that finished work never 
has; a freshness and careless grace that 
elaboration tames and spoils. Ah ! read 
me these. They let one into the secret 
laboratory of the poet's mind. 

He. Or behind the scenes, where the 
machinery is visible, and everything is 
rude and rough and out of place. 

She. Well, there is a fascination in 
that, too. There is where the friends of 



8 EE AND SHE; OR, 

the actors and authors are permitted to 
go. But begin : time is flying, the day is 



He. Ah, yes, if we only could stop 
Time when all is happy and bright ! But 
then it swiftest flees away. Here, listen, 
since you will hear something. This is 
apropos. 

O beloved day, 
Staj' with us, oh stay ! 
Hurry not \idth cruel haste thus so swift 
away. 

All is now so fair; 
Love is in the air; 
More than this of happiness scarce th© 
heart could bear. 

Nothing short of heaven, 
That perhaps not even 
Sweeter, dearer, more divine, will to ua 
be given. 

Dearest, on my breast 
Lean thy head and rest : 
Nothing that this world can give is better; 
this is best. 



A POET'S PORTFOLIO. 9 

Life is in its prime, 
And the glad springtime 
Breathes its subtle odors through us, 
turning thought to rhyme. 

To its very rim 
Joy life's cup doth brim ; 
Nature, smiling all around us, sings its 
happy hymn. 

Love its perfect tune 
On the harp of Jime 
Plays the while the whole world listens, 
'neath the pulsing noon. 

Almost 't is a pain 
In the heart and brain ; 
All the nerves of life are thrilling with 
its rapturous strain. 

Stay with us, oh, stay. 
Dear, beloved day ! 
Flower and bloom of full creation, never 
pass away. 

There, I read it to you just as I wrote 
it, without a correction, since you will 
have sketches. 



10 EE AND SHE; OR, 

She. It is what I call a rapturous sigh 
for the impossible. And the beloved 
one ? — but I must not ask who she was. 

He. Oh, yes ; you may. She was a 
most exquisite creature. You never knew 
her ; nor I either. 

She. Well, that is some satisfaction. 
She was not real. 

He. Oh yes, perfectly real ; more real 
than any actual person I know. But with 
the day and the hour she vanished, like 
the weird sisters of Macbeth, into air. 

She. It must have been a charming 
day to have inspired such verses. That, 
at all events, must have been a fact. 

He. Certainly, The day was a fact. 
Here is the date, November 21, and a 
note in my diary, " Rains cats and dogs 
and pitchforks, and I think the wind is 
mad ; it blows so that the whole house 
shudders." You see, I made the day as 
well as the person and the poem. 

She. There is no believing anything 
that poets say, I suppose had it been 
a faultless day in June, you would have 
been mooning and moaning over some- 
body and something. 

He. Ah, but all days do not turn out 



A POET'S PORTFOLIO. 11 

fust as this did. Our beautiful days are 
chose we don't expect, which fall to us 
out of heaven, perfect and with a sweet 
surprise. Others to which we have looked 
forward, and from which we have ex- 
pected so much — too much — are so often 
only disappointments. We profess to en- 
joy them, but we do not ; they are fail- 
ures. We cannot hunt joy into its fast- 
nesses ; it flies before the hunter, and 
comes suddenly forward to meet us face 
to face when we least look for it. Some 
of our beautiful days turn out, for in- 
stance, like this : — 

Yes, 't was a beautiful day, 
The guests were all laughing' and gay ; 
All said they enjoyed and admired. 
But oh, I 'm so tired, — so tired ! 
I 'm glad that the night 's coming on, 
I am glad to get home and be quiet ; 
I am glad that the long day is done, 
With its noise and its laughter and riot. 

For somehow, it seemed like a fate, 
I was always a moment too late : 
The music just stopped when I came, 
I saw but the fireworks' last flame ; 



12 HE AND SHE; OR, 

The dancing was over, the dancers 

Were laughing and going away ; 

The curtain had dropped, and the foo*it 

lights 
Were all that I saw of the play. 

It was only my luck, I suppose ; 
And the day was delightful to those 
Who were right in theii' time and theij 

place. 
But for me, I did nothing but race 
And struggle ; and all was in vain. 
We camiot have all of us prizes, 
And a pleasure that 's missed is a para, 
And one balance goes down as one rises. 

And I 'm tired, — so tired at last 

That I 'm glad that the great day is past 

The pleasure I sought for I missed, 

And I ask, Did it really exist ? 

Were they happy who smiled so, and sai^ 

'T was delightful, exciting, enchanting ? 

I doubt it ; but they perhaps had 

Just the something I always was wanting. 

In the triumph, I ask, does the crown 
Never crease the smooth brow to a frown "i 
Does the wine that our spirits makes gay 



A POET'S PORTFOLIO. 13 

Leave the head free from aches the next 

day? 
Is the joy, when 'tis caught, worth the 

while 
Of the struggle and labor to win it ? 
Has love a perpetual sniUe, 
And life's best no bitterness in it ? 

It may be, and yet at its best. 
When the wave of life towers to its crest, 
Ere its run for a moment can flash 
In its joy-light, it breaks with a crash, 
And shattered sinks down on the shore ; 
For the strength of desire has departed, 
The glory and gladness are o'er, 
And it dies in despair, broken-hearted. 

She. Life is just such a day. 

He, Ah yes, but too often. 

She. If we could only be content with 
what we have, how much happier we 
should be. But the hope that beckons 
us into the future commonly spoils the 
present. The music is always on the next 
field ; the promise is always sweeter than 
the performance ; we are always either 
looking back and regretting, or looking 
forward and hoping, and the actual pres- 



14 HE AND SHE; OR, 

ent, which stands offering us flowers, we 
treat with scorn, or at least with indiffer- 
ence. The gods have eternally the pres- 
ent ; for them is no future, no past ; and 
so they are divine. It is only Satan who 
tempts us with the future, or taunts us 
with the past, because we are mortals ; 
and thus he jeers at us, and spoils aU we 
really own. Joy is only a dream. 

He. But a dream is not always a joy. 
Here, for instance, is one if you would 
like to hear it ; whether from the ivory 
gate or not, you shall say. But before 
I read this dream, since I have given 
you two Days, let mie now give you one 
Night, the end of all the banquet, and the 
dancing, and the laughter : — 

Through the casement the wind is moan- 

On the pane the ivy crawls ; 
The fire is faded to ashes. 

And the black brand broken falls. 

The voices are gone, but I linger, 

And silence is over all; 
Where once there was music and laughter 

Stands Death in the empty haU. 



A POET'S PORTFOLIO. 15 

There is only a dead rose lying 
Faded and crushed on the floor, 

And a harp whose strings are broken, 
That Love will play no more. 

She. Oh, too, too sad; I am sorry you 
read it. 

He, WeU, life is so. 

She. I don't care if it is, one should 
not dwell on it. Now for the dream. 
Was it a real one ? 

He. Yes, a real one ; and you will see 
what a pleasant one it was. 

Last night I had a tiger to play with, 
Ah yes, as you say, 't was only a 
dream. 
But even in a dream to play with a 
tiger 
Is not so pleasant as it may seem. 

She was smooth and supple, and lithe and 
graceful. 
But she watched me with ever flashing 
eye. 
And I felt forever a horrible feeling 
Wlule that tiger was with me, that 
death was nigh; 



16 HE AND SHE; OR, 

That at any moment her claws might rend 
me, 
And an instant's passion might cost me 
my life. 
So I gave her whatever she wanted to 
soothe her, 
And promised to make this tiger my 
wife. 

But what was curious — though in dream- 
ing, 
There is nothing that really does sur- 
prise — 
Was that it seemed to be you, dear Annie, 
And had your graces, and had your 
eyes. 

She. Oh, that is really unpardonable. 
Who was it that refused you a turn in 
the waltz, or would not pin a cotillion fa- 
vor on your coat, that you thus revenged 
yourself upon her ? Annie — Annie — 
Who was Annie ? 

He. You always want to know the 
unknowable. You always suppose that 
such verses apply to an individual. 

She. Yes, they always have a root in 
some fact or person. They are not all 



A POET'S PORTFOLIO. 17 

made out of your brain ; they are not 
wholly fictions. You need not pretend 
that they are. 

He. I do not. But one imagines all 
sorts of things that are false, and I con- 
fess that I amuse myself often in society, 
by looking mto the windows of persons 
I do not know to see what they are about 
within. 

She. Looking in at windows ! I am 
ashamed of you. 

He. The windows I mean are the eyes. 
Strange creatures look through them — 
tigers, lambs, devils, angels. 

She. Oh ! well. I am glad to hear 
that there are angels sometimes. Thank 
you. I was afraid you only saw wild 
beasts in our eyes. 

He. Sometimes tenderness uifinite, of- 
tener devils of jealousy and hatred, and 
very frequently empty rooms, with not 
even a little devil in them, much less an 
angel. We get strange peeps at times 
into the world within, when we least ex- 
pect it. 

She. So it was not because Annie would 
not give you a waltz ? 

He. No. I told you 'twas a real 



18 EE AND SEE; OR, 

dream. This is my idea of a waltz, when 
Annie gives me one : — 

My arm is around your waist, love. 

Your hand is clasping mine, 
Your head leans over my shoulder, 

As around in the waltz we twine. 
I feel your quick heart throbbing, 

Your panting breath I breathe. 
And the odor rare of your hyacinth hair 

Comes faintly up from beneath. 

To the rhythmic beat of the music. 

In the floating ebb and flow 
Of the tense violin, and the lisping flute, 

And the burring bass we go. 
Whirling, whirling, whirling. 

In a rapture swift and sweet, 
To the pleading violoncello's tones. 

And the pulsing piano's beat. 

'The world is alive with motion, 

The lights are whirling all. 
And the feet and brain are stirred by the 
strain 

Of the music's incessant call. 
Dance ! dance ! dance ! it calls to us ; 

And borne on the waves of sound, 



A POET'S PORTFOLIO. 19 

We circling swing, in a dizzy ring, 
With the whole world wheeling round. 

The jewels dance on your bosom. 

On your arms the bracelets dance, 
The swift blood speaks in your mantling 
cheeks, 

In your eyes is a dewy trance ; 
Your white robes flutter around you, 

Nothing is calm or still. 
And the senses stir in the music's whirr 

With a swift electric thrill. 

We pause ; and your waist releasing, 

We stand and breathe for a while ; 
Ajid, your face afire with a sweet desire. 

You look in my eyes and smile. 
We scarcely can speak for panting, 

But I lean to you, and say, 
All ! who, my love, can resist you, 

Tou have waltzed my heart away. 

She. It gets into my feet as well as 
piy head, tliis waltz of yours. 

He. The hues have perhaps a certain 
kind of movement in them, defective as 
they are ; but they were scribbled in a 
comer of a ball-room while waltzers were 



20 HE AND SHE; OB, 

whirling dizzily round, and the lights 
were shaking and the music was going ; 
so you camiot expect they should have 
any thing more than mere go. 

She. Mere go ! You speak of that sa 
if it were notliing ; but after all, is not 
that the secret of a good deal of our 
poetry, and especially that of Byron ? 
You cannot look into it with a critical 
eye. It is full of bad English, and false 
metaphor, and straiaed sentiment ; but 
there is "go" in it, and it intoxicates 
the thoughts and senses, so that one 
ceases to be critical. Glissez, glissez mor- 
tels, n'appuyez pas, should be your rule in 
reading liim. It won't do to linger. You 
must gulp, not sip. 

He. At all events, he did not over- 
refine as some of our modern poets do. 

For instance, there is , I suppose 

he means something, but his meaning 
is so involved in a complicated web of 
vague and far-fetched words and phrases, 
that sometimes it is not a little difficult 
to get at it; and I am not sure that after 
you have got at it, it is worth the 
trouble. 

She. No, we are now getting so euphu- 



A POET'S PORTFOLIO. 21 

istic, that I don't pretend to understand 
half I read, though I am a woman, and 
much of it, apparently, is written spe- 
cially for us women ; or at least so it 
would seem, there is so little that is 
manly in it. 

He. Sorae of them talk like Hamlet's 
friend, Osric — " after what flourish their 
natures will." Here is a profile sketch 
of . Do you recognize it ? 

She. Oh, very like; and what <we the 
lines you have written uiider it ? 

He. Mere nonsense. 

She. Read them. 

He. 
A Brahmin he sits apart, 
Our modern poet, and gazes 
Attentively mto his heart, 
And its faint and vaporous phases, 
Examines with infinite care. 
All his feelings are thin as air, 
All his passions are mUd as milk. 
He loves but the quamt and the ol(^ 
He dares not be simple and bold. 
But refines and refines and refines, 
And treads on a thread as spare 
As the spider's gauzy sUk, 
That trembles in all its lines 



22 EE AND SHE; OR, 

With the breeze, and can scarcely hold 

The dewdrop the morning has strung ; 

And so 'twixt the earth and the sky, 

And to neither wed, he is hung ; 

And he ponders his words and his rhymes, 

And his delicate tuikle of chimes. 

And strives to be deep and intense ; 

While the world of beauty and sense, 

The strong and palpitant world, 

The powers and passions of man, 

By which it is whipped and whirled, 

Are only to him an offense. 

'T is the chaff blown awaiy by the fan, 

That he gathers his garners to fill, 

Not the gram that the world's great mill 

Takes out of life as its toll. 

For he scorns the common and rude. 

And only exammes his soul, — 

His particular soul, — and wears 

A vestment of whims, and of airs. 

And of fancies so frail and so thin 

That they scarcely can cover the nude. 

Little thought he is nursing within. 

So sitting alone and apart, 

He broods and he broods and he broodS| 

And plays on his little lute, 

And smgs of his little moods, 

With a sweet sesthetic art. 

And his song is — 



A POET'S PORTFOLIO. 23 

There, you see, I have left off. What 
is his song ? 

She. I suppose it is a ballade, with 
skim-milk love and fine-drawn sentiment, 
belonging to some other century, and sung 
perhaps by a mediaeval knight to the ac- 
companiment of some queer mstrument, 
now unknown except in museums, while 
around him are lying long, lean, languid 
ladies on a lawn. 

He. Charming alliteration, worthy of 
the theme, but the ballade must have a 
refrain. 

She. Of course, what is a ballade with- 
out a refrain ? 

He. And the refrain must have no con- 
nection, as far as meaning goes, with the 
ballade. 

She. Of course not ! For whom do 
you take me, to imagine that I suppose it 
necessary for a refrain to have any sense ? 
A refrain is always the burden of a poem, 
and is fitly named a burden. 

He. The burden, or bourdon, as Spen- 
ser more properly spells it, is intelligible 
enough in the old ballades, which were at 
first improvised, or supposed to be impro- 
vised, and always were sung or chanted ; 



24 HE AND SHE; OR, 

and then it represented the pause or rest 
which the accompanying instrument filled 
up with its little ritornello, and bour- 
donned sometimes alone without words, 
and sometimes with catch - words con- 
stantly repeated, so as to give time to the 
improvisator to think out the following 
lines, or to the singer to rest his voice or 
revive his memory. In Italy, as you 
know, the improvisator is always accom- 
panied by a guitar and mandoline, which 
bourdonnent their little plirase between 
the lines or the stanzas, and fill up the 
gaps. But in serious poems of the pres- 
ent day, written to be read and not sung, 
this repetition of the bourdon without the 
song is a stumbling block and an offense, 
and often a mere affectation. 

She. None the less Shakespeare uses it. 

He. I know he does, here and there in 
his sonnets, but they were to be sung, not 
read; for instance, — 

" Sing hey, ho, the wind and the rain. 
For the rain it raineth every day." 

There is a certain grace about that, I 
admit. But he knew how and when to 



A POET'S PORTFOLIO. 25 

ase it. Nowadays these bourdons bore 
me, in our modern poems. Suppose, for 
instance, 1 should insist in some passion- 
ate and pathetic poem in tripping up the 
reader constantly by interpolating such a 
refrain as this, — 

The world is wide, the wind is cold. 
Ah me, the new, ah me, the old. 

She. There is too much meaning in it. 
It is not a success as a refrain. It is not 
so good as your description of the Brah- 
min poet, wherein, indeed, " his define- 
ment suffers no perdition in you." 

He. Ah, I see you " know this water- 
fly," our friend Osric, as Hamlet jeering- 
ly calls him. Let me see — how does he 
go on, "In the verity of extolment, I 
take him to be a soul of great article ; 
and his infusion of such dearth and rare- 
ness, as, to make true diction of him, his 
semblable is his mirror." 

She. " Your lordship speaks most in- 
fallibly of him." Oh, what fun Shake- 
speare is ! 

He. Ah, is n't he ? I know not which 
most surprises me in him, his humor or 
power of passion. 



26 BE AND SHE; OR, 

She. Oh, don't let us talk of Shake- 
speare. If you do I shall hear no more 
of jOiir verses. 

He. What a loss ! 

She. When we don't get what we want, 
it is always a loss, whether it is a king- 
dom or an onion. You need not fish for 
compliments from me. I promised you 
to be honest. 

He. When one promises to be honest, 
one means to be severe. 

She. Oh, that is your notion of it, is 
it ? and perhaps there is some truth in it. 
But you have promised to amuse me, so 
now read me soinething more, something 
silly, if you can deign to be silly. 

He. Ah, that is cruel. I pride myself 
on my silliness. Shakespeare, I am sure, 
was silly; in fact, Ben Jonson, or was it 
Fuller, as much as tells us so, aliquid 
sufflimanandus erat. He had to be sup- 



She. There you are back on Shalsie- 
speare agam. Read your verses and don't 
talk about him now. 

He. In a minute ; but first let me 
read these two somiets about our great 
poets. 



A POETS PORTFOLIO. 27 

WTiose are those forms august that, iu the 
press 

And busy blames and praises of to-day, 

Stand so serene above life's fierce affray 

With ever youthful strength and loveli- 
ness ? 

Those are the mighty makers, whom no 
stress 

Of tune can shame, nor fashion sweep 
away, 

Whom art begot on nature in the play 

Of healthy passion, scorning base excess. 

Rismg perchance in mists, and half ob- 
scure 

When up the horizon of their age they 
came, 

Brighter with years they shine in steadier 
light, 

Great constellations that will aye en- 
dure. 

Though myriad meteors of ephemeral 
fame 

Across them flash, to vanish into night. 

Such was our Chaucer in the early prime 
Of English verse, who held to Nature's 

hand 
And walked serenely through its morning 

land. 



28 BE AND SHE; OR, 

Gladsome and hale, brushing its dewy 

rime. 
And such was Shakespeare, whose strong 

soul could climb 
Steeps of sheer terror, sound the ocean 

grand 
Of passion's deeps, or over Fancy's 

strand 
Trip with his fairies, keeping step and 

time. 
His, too, the power to laugh out full and 

clear, 
With unembittered joyance, and to move 
Along the silent, shadowy paths of love 
As tenderly as Dante, whose austere, 
Stern spirit through the worlds below, 

above. 
Unsmiling strode, to tell their tidings 

here. 

She. Very good. Yes, I am glad I 
did not drive you away from Shake- 
speare; though when you get on this 
theme you never come to an end, and I 
was afraid — 

He. He never came to an end. 

She. You have said quite enough about 
him in your two sonnets. And you must 



A POETS PORTFOLIO. 29 

give me a copy of them to think over at 
my leisure. Will you ? 

He. I am only too happy that you 
should tliink them worth having. 

She. Well, I do. Now for some silly 
verses. 

He. Here are some silly lines I once 
wrote at the request of a friend, as an 
autograph (they even ask autographs 
from me now, — don't laugh) for a young 
girl whose very name was unkno^vn to 
me. " Pray give me your autograph for 
a dear little friend of mine," she wrote, 
and I sent her this : — 

Oh lovely Annie or, 
Jemiy, or Faimy, or 
Lily, or Bessie, for whom youths are rav- 
ing, 
Love while your youth you own. 
For let the truth be known, 
Nothing in old age is half worth the 
having. 

She. How do you know ? 

He. I guess; one is never so old as 
when one is young. 

She. Nor so young as when one is old, 
perhaps, sometimes. But go on. 



80 HE AND SHE; OR, 

Then all regretting 
But never forgetting, 
Longing for that which has vanished 
away, 
Life creeps on wearily, 
Ah ! we cry drearily, 
Would I were young again, careless and 
gay! 

She. As if one ever were -really — but 
as if one ever really — but no matter —• 
but no matter; go on. 

But when the hair is gray, 

When the teeth fall away, 
Loving and kissing we lay on life's 
shelves; 

Old age in others is 

Charming, in mothers is 
Lovely, but somehow 't is not in ourselves. 

Talk not to me of fame, 

'T is but to be a name, 
'T is an old story, that tires when 't is told. 

Careless and happy, 

Not hairless and cappy. 
Love me, my darling, before you grow 
old. 



A POET'S PORTFOLIO. 31 

She. You call that silly ? In my opin^ 
ion it 's the wisest thing you have yet 
read. Was not your youjig frier d 
pleased ? 

He. I don't laiow. She never told me. 
She " let concealment like a worm i' the 
bud feed on her damask cheek." Whether 
" she sat like patience on a monument 
smiling at grief " after receivmg it, I can- 
not say. I like to he accurate in these 
natters, and as far as concealment goes 
. am sure, but about the monument I 
im doubtful. 

She. I should have been more grateful, 
but it is so difficult to give expression to 
one's feelings. I suppose she was afraid 
to write to you. 

He. No doubt I am a terrible person, 
And I don't wonder she feared me; it 
gratified my pride. I extend my hand 
and bless her like a — what shall we say, 
father, or uncle ? 

She. Uncle, I tliink, is best ; unless that 
involves leaving her a fortune. The re- 
lation is perilous, one expects a great deal 
from one's imcle. On the whole, perhaps 
you had better stick to " friend." That 
means so much, and then again so little. 



92 EE AND SHE; OR, 

He. There is something so patronizing 
in calling any one your young friend. It 
assumes such a superiority that my mod- 
esty shrinks from it. 

She. Ay, but call yourself her old 
friend; and what a difference ! Now, I 
•m your old friend. 

He. Yes, so you are, considering — 

She. Considering what ? 

He. Considering that you are stUl so 
^oung. 

She. I suppose it never occurred to 
l^ou to write anything for me. 

He. Will you take this ? 

Little we know what secret influence 

A word, a glance, a casual tone may 

bring, 
That, like the wind's breath on a chorded 

string, 
May thrill the memory, touch the iimer 



And waken dreams that come we laiow 
not whence; 

Or like the light touch of a bird's swift 
wing. 

The lake's still face a moment visiting, 

Leave pulsing rings, when he has van- 
ished thence. 



A POETS PORTFOLIO. 33 

You looked into my eyes an instant's 

space, 
And all the boundaries of time and place 
Broke down, and far into a world beyond 
Of buried hopes p,nd dreams my soid had 

sight. 
Where dim desires long lost, and memo- 
ries fond, 
Rose ia a soft mirage of tender Hght. 

She. Ah, you never wrote that to me^ 

He. I might have written it to you,, 
and it is all the same as if I did. It is 
yours now. 

She. I accept it, and thank you. Oh, 
how true it is that a glance, a word, an 
inflection of voice, will sometimes carry 
the spirit so far, far away, and break 
down all the barriers of the present, and 
evoke dim memories of the past long 
buried out of sight ! How little we know 
what secret unconscious influences we ex- 
ert ! We are for the most part islands ; 
spiritual islands, to which no other soul 
can really reach save by a tone or a glance. 

He. And never do we feel this more 
than in our deep sorrows. Then how ter- 
ribly far we are from every one; how 



34 HE AND SHE; OR, 

isolated; how alone. No one can help us 
then. And equally in our love. Intimate 
and intense as it may be, the lover and 
the loved are always two. Their two 
spirits can no more intermingle than their 
bodies can. Stop ! I have some verses 
here, somewhere, apropos to this. Ah, 
here they are. 

Thy lips touched mine, there flashed a 
sudden fire 

From brain to brain; 
■Oh, was it joy, or did that wild desire 

Turn it to pain ? 

The thirst of soul Love's rapture could 
not slake 
While we were twain; 
Of our two beings, one we could not 
make, 
And that was pain. 

She. You have not quite succeeded in 
that poem. 

He. No, I know it. It is not what it 
ought to be, and nothing on earth is; but 
you know I am not professing to read 
you poems, but only scraps and sketches, 



A FOETS PORTFOLIO. 35 

mmI DOt because I tliiuk them worth 
much, but because you asked me to read 
them. 

She. You see, I am honest with you. 
Your idea is good, but you might express 
it better. It is worth trying for agail^. 

He. Perhaps; but ideas come and go, 
and i^ one does not seize them at once 
they are gone, and they never come back 
with ^he same freshness and accidental- 
ity. They come and sing a little song to 
us, and sometimes we hear it right and 
sometimes wrong; and there is no more 
virtue m us, if we do not catch it right 
at first; or, to use another metaphor, if 
we break a flower when we pluck it, we 
cannot mend it again. Accident, Fate, 
Fortune, anything you please, tlirows us 
at times her ball, and we either catch it, 
or we do not. If we do not — 

She. We make a mis-take. 

He. Is that a pun ? 

She. I did not mean it for one, but 
simply fo2 an analysis of the word, as 
holding a philosopliical truth. 

He. As far as life is concerned, every- 
whuig seems in that sense to be a mistake. 
But here is another kind of a mistake, 
orhich may amuse you. 



36 EE AND SHE; OR, 

How jour sweet face revives again 
The dear old time, my Pearl, — 

If I may use the pretty name, 
I called you when a girl. 

You are so young; while Time of me 

Has made a cruel prey, 
It has forgotten you, nor swept 

One grace of youth away. 

The same sweet face, the same sweet 
smile. 

The same lithe figure, too ! — 
What did you say ? " It was perchance 

Your mother that I knew ? " 

Ah, yes, of course, it must have been. 

And yet the same you seem. 
And for a moment, all these years 

Fled from me like a dream. 

Then what your mother would not give. 

Permit me, dear, to take. 
The old man's privilege — a kiss — 

Just for your mother's sake. 

She. Ha, ha ! That was a pretty mis- 
take; but you got out of it fairly weU. 






A POET'S PORTFOLIO. 37 

He. Yes; I got the old man's privi- 
lege, but I don't know that that is a great 
consolation. A man begins to feel old, 
really, when the young girls are not shy 
of him, and let him kiss them without 
making any fuss about it, but almost as a 
matter of course. As long as they blush 
and draw back, he flatters himself that 
he is not really so old after all. The last, 
worst phase is when they don't wait for 
him, but come and kiss him of their own 
accord. Oh, that is too much. Gout is 
nothing to that, nor white hairs. 

She. Yes, I see; this last kiss is differ- 
ent from the one in the former poem. 

He. Eather ! There are as many kinds 
of kisses as of characters. The most 
foolish of all kisses is that formality be- 
tween women, who go through the cere- 
mony of rubbing their noses against each 
other's cheeks and calling it a kiss. 

She. Persons who are constantly kiss- 
ing and calling everybody dear are my 
aversion. A kiss should really mean 
something, and when everybody is dear, 
nobody is. For instance, there is our 
friend , who is so full of tender dem- 
onstrations, and never speaks of anybody 



38 HE AND SHE; OR, 

without an endearing epithet, and who 
really is a totally neutral being, without 
color or real feeling or possibility of pas- 
sion, and who squanders her epithets and 
kisses for just what they are worth, — 
notlung. And yet she is perfectly good- 
natured. 

He. Ah, yes, good-natured. Univer- 
sally good-natured persons are generally 
shallow and heartless. 

She. Oh ! no, no. That is going too far. 

He. Perhaps; there are exceptions, I 
dare say. But those gay, bright, sunny 
little bodies that sparkle along in life, 
and are always laughing and always gay, 
are, for the most part, like running 
streams, — the shallower they are, the 
greater noise and babble they make. 
Rivers sweep on calmly and deeply. 

She. Don't be led astray by a meta- 
phor. They are dangerous things. They 
often confuse the judgment by keeping it 
fixed on two things at once. The Ulus- 
fcration blinds the eye to the thing illus- 
trated. 

He. But all speech is metaphor. 

She. And all speech is dangerous. Si- 
lence is golden, speech is silvern. 



A POET'S PORTFOLIO. 39 

He. I wish we could keep that word 
silvern. We say brazen, golden, cedarn, 
and ought to say silvern. It is the true 
old English word. And so is eyen for 
eyes, as we say oxen not oxes. We have 
already too many final s's in our English 
plurals. But to go back to what we were 
saying, I don't seriously care for merely 
good-natured people. I prefer those who 
are varied in feeling and stiller of nature 
and stronger of character. I could not 
love the gay-hearted creature who would 
bury you without a tear. 

>S'^e. But why, why should there be 
any necessary mconsistency between good 
nature and deep feeling ? 

He. I don't know why, I merely state 
the fact. As far as my experience goes, 
I have so found it. 

She. All things are good in their place. 
The gay, good-natured people lend life to 
society, and sunshine to home. It would 
be dismal to have society composed only 
of people with deep feelings, and perhaps 
even you will admit that at home there 
is nothuig more delightful than a bright 
smmy nature, which sees good in all. 

He. I give it up. I won't argue with 



40 HE AND SHE; OR, 

you, but you know what I mean; and I 
repeat, those that love everybody love 
nobody. 

She. There are all sorts of tastes; and 
all sorts of persons are required to make 
up a world. 

He. There are prickly thistles, and 
bright-eyed daisies, and stately scentless 
camellias ; and there is the rose, — I pre- 
fer the rose. And here is a "copy of 
verses," as our fathers called them, on 
this subject. 

When Nature had shaped her mstic beau- 
ties, — 
The bright-eyed daisy, the violet sweet, 
The blushing poppy that nods and trem- 
bles 
In its scarlet hood among the wheat, — 

She paused and pondered; — and then she 
fashioned 

The scentless camellia proud and cold, 
The spicy carnation freaked with passion, 

The lily pale for an angel to hold. 

All were fair, yet something was want- 
ing. 
Of freer perfection, of larger repose; 



A POET'S PORTFOLIO. 41 

And again she paused, — then in one glad 
moment 
She breathed her whole soul into the 



With you, dear Violet, Daisy, and Poppy, 

Pleasant it was hi the fields to play. 
In the careless and heartless joy of child- 
hood. 
When an hour was as long as man- 
hood's day. 

And with you, O passionate, bright Car- 
nation, 
A boy's brief love for a time I knew, 
And you I admired proud Lady Camellia, 
And, Lily, I sang in the church with 
you. 

But O my Rose, my frank, free-hearted. 

My perfect above all conscious arts. 
What were they beside thee, O Rose, my 
darling, 
To you I have given my heart of 
hearts. 

She. That is pretty; I like that. You 
might illustrate it with so many pretty 
drawings. 



42 



HE AND SHE; OR, 



He. Wm you do it? 

She. I am afraid I should not be able. 
But I can see so many pictures one might 
make, that if nobody else will do it, I 
will try my hand. And first I will make 
the children, Poppy, Daisy, and Violet, 
playing in the garden together, and then 
the romantic flirtation of Carnation and 
her young lover in the wood. And then 
the dance with Lady Camellia, her own 
white flower in her hair, and he talking 
to her half -hidden behind a curtain; and 
then the hymn in the church with LUy. 
And then, oh then. Rose ; and where shall 
we place her ? On a beautiful, smooth- 
shaven English lavsm, sitting or strolling 
beneath the shadow of the perfumed limes 
in early summer morning, when the night- 
ingale sings in the trees, and the little 
birds are hopping along the greensward, 
and the breeze is rustling in the dewy 
leaves ? Or shall it be at twilight in some 
shadowy lane, when the eglantine wavers 
out, spotting with its delicate blossoms 
the hawthorn hedges, and the rose-clouds 
are hanging over the sunken sun, and the 
daffodil sky in the west is paling into 
soft grays, while in the east the low full 



A POET'S PORTFOLIO. 43 

moon is softly burmng through the dis- 
tant woods ? Or shall they both be sit- 
ting by a window, lookuig out over a 
sweet, far landscape, with snowy curtains 
waving in the breath of the June air, and 
a vase of roses near by scenting the at- 
mosphere ? Say, which shall it be ? 

He. Any, or all. That would be like 
making music for my words, embabning 
them, enchanting them, giving them the 
life and beauty they want, clothing their 
nakedness with singing robes, till all the 
world should listen and give the words 
the charm that the singing only owns. 
Will you do this ? 

She. I^villtry. 

He. I shall hold you to your promise, 
but I know you never will perform it. 

She. I only said I would try. 

He. And now I will give you another 
picture to paint for me. It is towards 
twUight, and two lovers are in a boat; 
sUent, alone, dreaming, their oars sns' 
pended ; and he leans forward and gazes 
at her, and she is lookuig over the side of 
the boat into the waters, in which the 
shadows of the trees on the banks and 
the golden clouds in the sky are softly re- 
■Sected. 



4 J: HE AND SEE,- OR, 

Afloat on the brim of a placid stream, 
Pleasant it is to lie and dream, 
With heaven above, and far below 
The deeps of death — sad deeps that know 
Tjbe still reflections of earth and sky- 
In their silent, serene obscurity. 
And hanging thus upon Life's thin rim, 
Death seems so sweet in that silvery, dim, 
Deep world below, that it seems half-best 
To sink into it and there find rest, 
Both, both together, ere age can come. 
And loving has lost its perfect bloom. 
One tilt, dear love, and we both might be 
Beyond earth's sorrows eternally. 

She. There is something in that ; never 
is love so secure but that there is the 
menace of change, the shadow of doubt, 
the fear of something, however vague it 
be. There is no permanent rising above 
life's levels. When the wave is at its 
utmost height, it falls shivered. And 
then, again, you have expressed that 
strange, haunting desire, that is almost 
irrepressible at times, to flmg one's self 
down a precipice on whose edge we stand, 
or to sink into the depths of some silent, 
glassy stream over which we are gliding. 



A POETS PORTFOLIO. 45 

Yes, at the height of pleasure comes the 
longing to stop life there. 

He. It is strange how at the very cul- 
mination of exalted feeltag, when the sen- 
sibilities are all alive, fate seems to take a 
special pleasure in doing them some pro- 
saic violence. How the commonplace and 
even contemptible facts of life wUl rush 
in athwart us ia our most poetic moods, 
and compel us to laugh, despite our an- 
noyance. The lover is just declarmg Iiis 
passion to some trembling girl, for in- 
stance, when Bridget opens the door to 
say, " Please Miss, the butcher says shall 
he leave a leg of mutton, or wUl you have 
a pair of chickens; " — or just as the poet 
is in the height, let us call it, of his inspi- 
ration, some " person from Porlock " will 
come in on business matters, to try on 
one's new shoes, perhaps, and the vision 
of Kubla Khan disappears beyond the ho- 
rizon of recovery. 

She. It is lucky that the " person from 
Porlock " was anonymous, or hundreds of 
us would have taken his life. 

He. I wonder if he ever existed. It 
would be just lilie Coleridge to have in- 
vented him as an excuse for his own lazi- 



46 EE AND SHE; OR, 

She. Whether he existed or not, he 
exists no longer, so let us think no 
more of liim, since both he and. Coleridge 
have gone beyond recall, and no one can 
ever finish that exquisite fragment which 
he interrupted. 

He. Ah ! who knows ? Martui Far- 
quhar Tupper finished his " Christabel." 

She. So he did, in more senses than 
one, but there are few men so brave as 
he. What is that you have m your hand 
now ? Eead it. 

He. Perhaps you won't think it apro- 
pos; but here it is: — 

Do you remember that most perfect night, 

In the full flush of June, 
When the wide heavens were tranced in 
silver light 

Of the sad patient moon ? 
Silent we sat, awed by a strange unrest; 

The fathomless, far sky 
Our very life absorbed, our thoughts op- 



By its immensity. 

Lost in that infinite vast, how idle seemed 
The best of human speech, 



A POET'S PORTFOLIO. 47 

Earth scarcely breathed, so silently she 
dreamed, 
Save when from some far reach 
The fault wmd sighed, and stirred the 
slumbering trees, 
And shadowy stretch and plain 
Seemed haunted by unuttered mysteries 
Night on its life had lain. 

We knew not what we were, or where we 
went. 
Borne by some unseen power. 
Nor in what dream-shaped realms our 
spu'its spent 
That long, yet brief half hour; 
I only know that, as a star from high 

Slides down the ether thin, 
We shot to earth, roused by a startHng 
cry, 
" You 're getting cold — come in." 

She. Yes, it always happens so. But 
why did you say these lines were not 
apropos to what we were saying ? 

He. So as not to let you into the se- 
cret, and carefully extract the sting of 
reality from my verses. Confess that 
you were not at all prepared for its con- 
clusion. 



48 EE AND SHE; OR, 

She. I was not, and I can't help think- 
ing it was a little shabby in you so to end 
it. 

He. The world now demands realism, 
and here you have it. 

She. But I don't want it; I have 
enough of it in life ; I don't want it in 
poetry. I Uke to have my romantic and 
ideal world, and to keep it separated 
from my real and prosaic one. 

He. Will this please you better ? I 
have already given you, a little wliile ago, 
the longing from below to sink into the 
deep; here is the longing from above, 
which may serve as a pendant. 

The winds are forever blowrug, blowing, 
The streams are forever flowing, flowing. 
And all things forever going, going. 

Nothing on earth is at rest, — 
Ever departtag, never abiding. 
Sliding away, and onward gliding, 

Alike the worst, the best. 

The sky is a glacier paved with snow. 
And heaped with many a crowded floe, 
And here and there a rift breaks through, 
Showing behind an abyss of blue, 



A POET'S PORTFOLIO. 49. 

A tender silence beyond, afar, 

Out of the tumult and rush, and far 

Of the winds that drive and rage below,, 

And beat on the mountain's crest, 
And for all we hope, and more than we- 
know, 

There, perchance, is rest. 

She. I am not sure that it is rest we 
want, but rather security against chance, 
agamst the slings and arrows of out- 
rageous fortune, against the irritations of 
daily life, and the petty needs which 
crowd about us, mendicants for our time 
and thoughts. There is nothing we really 
own. Joy is only lent to us for a mo- 
ment and then taken away, and over 
everything broods fear. 

He. Since we are in this vein, here is 
a sonnet to the purpose, and specially for 
to-day. 

Glad is the simshine, perfect is the day, 
A pearl of days, a flawless chrysolite 
The sky above us lifts its dome of light. 
And loitering clouds along its blue fields 

stray, 
Unshepherded by winds that far away 
4 



50 EE AND SHE; OR, 

Are sleeping in their eaves. This pure 

delight, 
This silent, peaceful gladness infinite, 
Is troubled by no sorrow, no dismay. 
Yes, for o'er all the shadow of a fear 
Is brooding, that the restless spirit knows, 
The doubting human spirit that forecasts, 
Even in the brightest that surrounds us 

here, 
The inevitable change, —for nought life 

knows 
Is fixed and permanent, cought lives thai 

lasts. 

She. Very sad, but unfortunately very 
true. But what is the use of weighing it 
and pondering it ? Let us enjoy Life's 
beauty as it comes, and not mar it by our 
melancholy previsions. Take the bitter 
out of my spirit that you have now in- 
fused there, by something a little brightei-. 

He. I am afraid I have notliing; my 
portfolio seems suddenly to have gone 
into mourning. But stop : here is a little 
trifle, apropos to what you were spying a 
few moments ago about kissing, which 
may amuse you. You remember the uW 
Italian proverb, " Un bacio dato ^on ^ 



A POETS PORTFOLIO. 51 

mai perduto." This is an illustration of 
it: — 

Because we once drove together 
In the moonlight over the snow, 

With the sharp bells ringing there tink- 
ling chime, 
So many a year ago, 

So, now, as I hear them jingle, 
The winter comes back again, 

Though the summer stirs in the heavy 
trees. 
And the wild rose scents the lane. 

We gather our furs around us, 
Our faces the keen air stings. 

And noiseless we fly o'er the snow-hushed 
world 
Almost as if we had wings. 

Enough is the joy of mere living. 
Enough is the blood's quick thrill ; 

We are simply happy, I care not why. 
We are happy beyond our will. 

The trees are with icicles jeweled. 
The walls are o'er-surfed with snow: 



52 EE AND SHE; OR, 

The houses with marble whiteness are 
roofed, 
In their windows the home-lights glow. 

Through the tense, clear sky above us 
The keen stars flash and gleam. 

And wrapped in their sUent shroud of 
snow 
The broad fields lie and dream. 

And jingling with low, sweet clashing 
Ring the bells as our good horse 
goes, 
And tossing his head, from his nostrils 
red 
His frosty breath he blows. 

And closely you nestle against me, 
WhUe around your waist my arm 

I have slipped — 't is so bitter, bitter 
cold — 
It is only to keep us warm. 

We talk, and then we are sUent; 

And suddenly — you know why — 
I stooped — could I help it ? You lifted 
your face — 

We kissed — there was nobody nigh. 



A POET'S PORTFOLIO. 53 

And no one was ever the wiser, 
And no one was ever the worse ; 

The skies did not fall, — as perhaps they 
ought, — 
And we heard no paternal curse. 

I never told it — did you, dear ? — 

From that day unto this ; 
But my memory keeps in its inmost re- 
cess. 

Like a perfume, that innocent kiss. 

I dare say you have forgotten, 

'T was so many a year ago ; 
Or you may not choose to remember it, 

Time may have changed you so. 

The world so chills us and kills us, 
Perhaps you may scorn to recall 
• That night, with its innocent impulse, — 
Perhaps you '11 deny it all. 

But if of that fresh, sweet nature 

The veriest vestige survive, 
STou remember that moment's madness, -^ 

You remember that moonlight drive. 

She. I like that. 



54 



HE AND SHE; OR, 



He. So did I. You see, I always re- 
membered it. 

She. Nonsense ! You never got it, 
really. 

He. No matter. I remember it. Don't 
you? 

She. I decline to answer. Read me 
sometliing else — inmaediately. 

He. Here is a little omelette souffle, 
not worth serving up. But — 

She. Don't make apologies, but read 
it, — please ? 

He. Here it is. 



I once laughed as loud as the best of 
them all, 
Jenny, my Jenny, 
I could foot it as lightly as they at the 
baE, 
Jenny, proud Jemiy. 
But my foot now is heavy, I wander 

apart. 
And the tears in my eyelids will gather 
and start; 
For, while sweetly you 're smiling 
And others beguilmg. 
Don't you see, my dear Jenny, you 're 
breaking my heart ? 



A pours PORTFOLIO. 55 

A rosebud she wore in her bonny brown 
hair, 
Jenny, my Jenny, 
When she looked at me first with her 
sweet saucy air, 
Jenny, dear Jenny, 
So red were her lips, and so lithe was her 

waist. 
That they seemed only made to be kissed 
and embraced. 
And a sudden, wild madness. 
Of longing and gladness, 
Thrilled through all my veins with a rap- 
turous haste. 

There 's Rob, and there 's Bob at her side 
that I see, 
Jenny, my Jemiy, 
And she smiles just as sweetly on them 
as on me, 
Jenny, gay Jenny. 
But why should I care ? There are others 

as fair 
Who will give me their smiles, and their 
favors to wear. 
And where 's the use sighing 
Just like a child crying. 
For the jilt of the moon, far away in the 
air. 



56 HE AND SHE; OR, 

She. The grapes were green. 

He. Precisely. 

She. But I don't care for that. There 's 
nothing in it. 

He. I did not say there was. I said 
it might serve as a trifle to take the bit* 
ter taste out of your mouth — a punch a 
la Romame, with just a little, a very lit- 
tle spirit in it. 

She. And why should Jenny have 
turned her face or her heart to your 
young man ? I have no doubt he was a 
horrible bore. Why should n't she dance 
with those pretty fellows Rob and Bob, 
who were so full of fun and animal 
spirits, while your young man was moon- 
ing about and calling her a jilt, and look- 
ing unutterable tilings into her eyes when 
he did come near her and trying to press 
her hand ? I have no pity for such fellows. 
If I had been Jemiy I should have turned 
round on him and said: If you 've got 
anything to say, for heaven's sake, say it, 
and have it over. Do you want me — 
yes ? Well, I don't want you. Good-by. 
I 'm engaged for the next waltz to Bob. 
I think that would have settled matters. 

He. Yes, I should have thought it 
would. But it did n't. 



A POET'S PORTFOLIO. 57 

She. Ah, so she did say so. I like her 
for it. That is what I call being frank 
and outspoken. But such feUows will 
never take no for an answer. 

He. No, indeed. She married him at 
last. 

She. Wliat a fool ! And I hope was 
unhappy all her life. 

He. I came away at about that time, 
and cannot tell. — Here is the kiad of 
woman you would like. 

She. Now, you are going to read some- 
thing disagreeable. 

He. No. This was a pretty, nice, little 
iceberg I knew when she was about forty. 

Yes ! she has lived, lived what she called 
her life. 
Feebly enjoyed and suffered trivial 
pain ; 
Years have slipped by and left no scars of 
strife 
Upon her little heart and little brain. 

No strain or strife of passion has she 
known ; 
Like a pale flower to which no scent is 
given. 



58 HE AND SHE; OB, 

No vivid hues, she in the shade haa 
grown, 
Knowing no hell, and worlds away from 
heaven. 

She might have fallen with a richer 



But what temptation is she never felt 
Cold, pure as snow, was her blank inno- 
cence, 

So cold, so pure, it knew not how to 
melt. 

She. I beg to ask why you said that 
was a woman after my mind. Did you 
mean to insult me ? 

He. Not at aU. I think she is a speci- 
men woman, without a fault. What can 
you ask more ? She never did anything 
wrong. She was so smooth and cold that 
vice caromed oflE from her as one billiard 
ball from another. What do you accuse 
her of? 

She. I think you once wrote some verses 
like these : — 

As for a heart and soul, my dear, 
You have not enough to sin, 



A POET'S PORTFOLIO. 59 

Outside so fair, like a peach you are, 
With a stone for a heart withiu. 



That 's your idea of a woman. Is it ? 

He. I have known such women, who 
were much admired by your sex, and 
called noble and pure. 

She. And all you men admire the demi- 
monde. 

He. And all you women imitate them 
in their manners, and particularly in their 



\ 



She. All us women ? 

He. All us men? 

She. There are exceptions. 

He. Well, we will be among the ex- 
ceptions. 

She. Have you any other portraits ? 
They amuse me. 

He. Yes, here is one from life: — 

Ah, yes, you love me, so you say, 

But yet a different tale I read, 

In those still eyes so cold and gray, 

In that ruled brow where lightnings 

breed. 
In those carved lips so set and thin, 
That keep their secrets firm withiu, 



60 HE AND SHE; OR, 

O'er whicli the dazzling smile that gleams, 
Keeps flashing Kke the auroral gleams 
Across the still, cold northern sky, 
As silently and fitfully. 

You say you love me, but I know 
'Tis only words you say; no snow 
Was ever colder. Just to win 
You want, nor would you count it sia, 
A heart to break, to gratify 
A whim of pride and vanity. 
So you might, like an Indian, add 
One other scalp to those you had; 
Nay ! worse, I fear, just for one hour 
Of wild caprice, to prove your power. 
You would with those cold, quiet eyes. 
Ordain my sudden sacrifice. 
Smile as you saw me writhe with pain. 
And say: Just torture him again, 
'T is comical to see him make 
Such dreadful faces for my sake. 

AH this I see and know, and still 
My love is all beyond my will. 
Take me and torture me, but first 
One real, wild, impassioned burst 
Of feeling give me. Lift your face, 
And let me for a moment's space 



A POET'S PORTFOLIO. 61 
Look through those eyes, so calm and 

stm, 

Into your spirit's inmost deeps, 
And see, if there within them sleeps 
A hidden well of love, a rill 
Of living feeling, or — and this 
Is what I fear — a dark abyss 
Of cold and silent vanity. 
Of selfish thought and cruel will, — 
That I may love, or turn and flee. 
And save myself from all the ill, 
The pain, the bHss of loving thee. 

She. That is what you might call a 
charming woman. 

He. It is not so very uncommon a 
woman. 

She. Woman ? It is a devil, rather. 

He. Some women are possessed by the 
devU of vanity, and have no feelings 
that are not subordinated to it. When a 
woman is cruel, she is more cruel than 
any man. We men can forgive every- 
thing to passion; women don't and can't, 
but men do; but what we cannot pardon 
S that cold, cruel vanity which is as in- 
satiable as it is heartless. But here, just 
for a contrast, is another kind of woman, 



62 EE AND SHE; OR, 

a nice, cheery little person, whom every- 
body likes, a brook-like little creature. 

She. A fool, I suppose, from your pref- 
ace. You men always Hke fools. 

He. Thanks. 

From early light to late at night, 

I chatter, chatter, chatter. 
If things are sad or things are bad, 

Dear me ! what does it matter ? 
The livelong day to me is gay, 

And I keep always laughing; 
The world at best is such a jest, 

'T is only fit for chaffing. 

Along the brim of life to skim, 

Not in its depths be sinking, 
With jest and smile time to beguile, 

Not bore one's-self with thinking. 
To touch and go, and to and fro, 

To gossip, talk-, and tattle. 
To hear the news, and to amuse 

One's world with endless prattle. 

This is my life : I hate all strife, 

With none I am a snarler; 
I like to joke with pleasant folk 

In any pleasant parlor. 



A POETS PORTFOLIO. 63 

And when the day has slipped away, 

Ere I blow out my candle, 
I sit awhile, and muse and smile, 

O'er that last bit of scandal. 

She. Yes, I am afraid, I am afraid 
there is a little bit of truth m that. 

He. A little bit? No more ? 

She. No, these prattlers have reactions 
of sadness. We only see the outside, 
the world-side of them. Be sure that 
sometimes, out of mere nervousness and 
over-excitement, they cry as bitterly as 
at other times they laugh loudly. And 
besides, this humor is oftentimes put on, 
just like one's dress, to wear into society. 
These creatures have the reputation of 
being gay, and they feel called upon to 
act up to their reputation; but often when 
they are alone and the excitement is over, 
comes a correspondmg depression. There 
is always sadness underlying all humor. 
There is the old story, you know, of the 
clown — I forget his name — who nightly 
provoked the world's laughter in the ring, 
and who was so depressed and melancholy 
in his real life and thought, that he con- 
sulted a physician to obtain some remedy 



h 



64 HE AND SEE; OE, 

for his hypochondria. And the physician 
recommended him to go to hear Grimaldi 
(that is his name, I remember it now). 
" Ah," answered he, " I am Biyself that 
wretched man." 

He. It is possible; but such stories are 
generally mere inventions. I dare say it 
bored him to go over the same old Jokes 
nightly, but that is natural. As to his be- 
ing aa extreme hypochondriac, I do not 
6elieve it. Besides, his case is different 
from that of these water-flies that skim 
and skate over the simny surface of life. 
One might as well try to make a cork 
sink as to depress them. There are char- 
acters and temperaments incapable of pro- 
found feeling, which cannot be deeply af- 
fected by anything, and are as shallow as 
they are bright. If these persons ever 
cry it is sympatietieally with another, for 
a moment, but before their tears are dry 
they are laughing again; and as for this 
world, they think with Hamlet, thouo'h in 
a different sense, that "there 's nothing 
serious in it." This is not a vice in them, 
it proceeds from their own nature. They 
cannot help it. 

She. Yes, I dare say you are right to a 



A POET'S PORTFOLIO. 65. 

certain extent. But now, read me some-- 
thing else of a different kind. 

He. I have two or three love poems.. 
Would you like to hear them ? 

She. Yes — perhaps. I am a little 
tired of love poems. 

He. Then we will pass them by. 

She. No; on the whole, I will hear 
them, though there can be little new to- 
say on that subject. 

He. Love is always new. It never 
grows old. It dies when it is young. 

She. Not real love. What you men call 
love, which for the most part is a matter- 
of the senses, may; but what we women 
mean by love, which is a matter of senti- 
ment and feeling, is very long-lived. 

He. Ah ? I did not know that senti- 
ment and feeling belonged only to your 
sex. I think you also, sometimes, love 
for a moment. Listen to what a man 
says on this subject ; not I, of course, — 
I know your love lasts forever, — but that 
fellow X., who is a disbeliever — or who 
was, for a moment — and I call the poem, 
therefore, "A Moment." 



G6 EE AND SHE; OR, 

How long would you love me ? A life- 
time ? Ah, that is too long ; let us 
say 

A moment. Life's best 's but a moment, 
and life itself scarcely a day. 

Perhaps you might love me that moment; 
perhaps, wliile you quaffed 

From life's brimming cup, with your 
sweet face turned up, love's exqui- 
site draught; 

AU the spirit insatiate thirsting its sweet- 
ness to drain, 

_Ajid a hurry of rapture swift rushing 
through heart and through brain; 

All bemg condensed to a drop, all the 

soul, all the sense, 
.Interfused as by fire, intermingled and 

throbbing with passion intense ; 

wlust one moment of Life's culmination, 

its waves' utmost height, 
Wliile it lifts its green cavern of opal all 

sun-fringed, in quivering light ; — 

Its foam-rose that topples and spreads at 
the crest of the Fountam's full stress, 



A POET'S PORTFOLIO. 67 

That the impulse that lifts cannot hold, 
that dies of its very excess ; 

Just one rapturous moment, wliile love 
you inhaled like the soul of a flower, 

For a breath space, an indrawing breath 
space, that words have no power 

At their best to express, so divine, so en- 
chanting, its soul-piercing scent, 

Thrillmg through all the nerves, but at 
last in a sigh to be breathed out and 
spent; 

Just one moment, no longer; and then, all 

the strength and desire 
Faded out, all the passion exhausted, 

naught left of the fire 

But the sullen, gray, desolate ashes, — oh, 
then, would you cling to me ? Say, 

Would you love me, or hate me, or scorn 
me, and ruthlessly fling me away ? 

Who knows ? Love and hate are so near, 
joy and pain, ice and fire, hope and 
fear, 

That I doubt, the next moment, this mo- 
ment so tender, so perfect, so dear. 



68 HE AND SEE; OR, 

This maddening moment I know, let tlie 
next what it chooses reveal; 

'Tis enough that you love me this mo- 
ment, let Fate, as she will, spin her 
wheel, 

Weave her web, cast her net, mito grief 

or despair make us prey; 
This is miae, this is ours, and, once given, 

can never be taken away. 

What though, from our dream when we 
wake, our love a mere folly may 
seem ? 
s/ What is life at the best but a sleep ? 
I what is love but a dream? 

She. I should like to hear her answer 
to all tliis rigmarole. 

He. You are complimentary. 

She. I have no doubt it ended by his 
love beiag for a moment and hers for a 
lifetime, — long after he had forgotten 
her. 

He. No: they were married and settled 
down, and lived together like very peace- 
able, good people ; and when he was sixty 
years old he wrote her another poem, of 



A POET'S PORTFOLIO. 69 

a verj different kind. You see, love 
looks differently from the point of view 
of sixty years, after forty years of mar- 
riage, from what it did at twenty, before 
marriage. 

She. You don't happen to have that 
last poem, do you ? I suppose it was a 
cold-hearted kind of tiling. 

He. Yes, it was not in the same key. 
It was a little toned down. There was 
not so much clashing of cymbals and 
blare of brass trumpets in the orchestra. 
The noisy instruments had all gone away, 
the gas and footlights were all extin- 
guished, and the piece was played on a 
summer afternoon by a violin and a vio- 
loncello accompanied by an old spinet, 
while a childish flute lisped on now and 
then, as if from Arcadian woods. 

She. I like that better. Let me hear 
what they played. 

He. It was not a sjrmphony; only a 
little old song; and here it is: — 

Yes, dear, I remember those old days, 
And oh, how charming they were ! 

I doubt — no, I know that no others to 
come 
WUl ever such feelings stir. 



70 EE AND SHE; OR, 

We had only been married a few months, 
And love, like a delicate haze, 

Veiled in beauty the trivial doings. 
The commonest facts of those days. 

Life was all smiling before us, 

And nature was smiling around; 
Spring hovering near us caressed us, 

And joy with its aureole crowned ; 
'Mid the flowers and the trees in blossom, 

Afar from the world we dwelt, 
And the air was sweet with a thousand 
odors, 

And the world like a f uU rose smelt. 

In the morning I used to leave you, 

And that was the only pain ; — 
Through the grass with its dewdrops dia- 
monded 

We walked down the shadowy lane. 
And as far as the gate you went with me, 

And there, with a kiss we said 
Good-by ; and you lingering watched me, 

And smiled and nodded your head, 

And waved your handkerchief to me, 
And I constantly turned to see 

tf you still were there, and my daily work 
Seem"-^^ a cruel necessity; 



A POET'S PORTFOLIO. 7'i 

The last turn took you away from me, 

As on to my task I went, 
But your face all day looked up from the 
page, 

As over my book I bent. 

And when day was over, how gladly 

I rushed from Lhe dusty town! 
As I opened the gate, I whistled, 

And there was your fluttering gown 
As you ran with a smile to meet me. 

With your brown curls tossing free. 
And your arms were thrown about my 
neck 

As I clasped you close to me. 

And the birds broke into a chorus 

Of twittering joy and love. 
And the golden sunset flamed in the 
trees, 

And gladdened the sky above. 
As up the lane together 

We slowly loitered along. 
While love in our hearts was singing 

Its young and exquisite song. 

The blood tlirough our veins ran swiftly, 
Like a stream of lambent fire; 



72 HE AND SHE; OB, 

Our thoughts were all winged, and onr 

spirits 

Uplifted with sweet desire. 
My joy, my love, my darlmg, 

You made the whole world sweet, 
And the very ground seemed beautiful 

That you pressed beneath your feet. 

What was there more to ask for. 

As I held you closely there, 
And you smiled with those gentle, tender 
eyes. 

And I breathed the scent of your hair ? 
Stop Time, and speed no further ! 

Notlmig, as long as we live, 
Can give such a radiance of delight, 

As one hour of love can give. 

The lilacs were fillmg with fragrance 

The air along the lane, 
And I never smell the lilacs 

But those hours revive again; 
And oft, though long years have vanished, 

One whifE of their scent will brmg 
Those old dear days, with their thrill of 
life. 

When love was in blossoming. 



A POET'S PORTFOLIO. 73 

Time has gone on despite us, 

We both have gi'own old and gray, 
And love itself has grown old and staid, 

But it never has flown away; 
The fragile and scented blossom 

Of springtime and youth is shed, 
But its sound, sweet fruit of a large con- 
tent 

Hath ripened for us instead. 

She. Ah, well ! There was life in the 
old man still. I think that is more to my 
taste than the other. There is something 
more real about it. The other has too 
many banners flying and gonfalons flout- 
ing the air, and there is too much glim- 
mer and glamour about it. This is more 
like a true experience. Only, one never 
can tell whether a poet's poetic existence 
and feeling has any true relation to his 
own real life. 

He. That depends on what you call his 
real Hfe. 

She. For the most part, they give all 
their sentiment and feeling to their ideal 
creations, and have very little to spare 
for their wives. I don't believe much in 
literary husbands. 



74 HE AND SHE; OR, 

He. Nor I. Do you in literary wives 1 

She. Not I. I suppose, to you, dra- 
matically speaking, one of these poems 
is just as true to life as the Other. 

He. Yes, of course, one may be better 
than the other; but while I was writing 
them, both seemed equally true. It is 
all a matter of seeming. A poet, if 
he is really a poet in the high sense, is 
transported into situations and personages 
utterly independent of himself, and, for 
the time, is more affected by their imagi- 
nary experiences and conditions and feel- 
ings than by any real experiences of his 
OAvn. 

She. Some poets; not all. 

He. I mean, of course, dramatic poets, 
not didactic. I should be very sorry to be 
taken literally in many things I write ; but 
it pleases me to imagine myself to be dif" 
ferent persons, and to express in my poor 
way what comes to me as belonging to 
that person in the supposed situation. In 
fact, while I write I am that person ; as 
Salvini to-night is Othello, and to-morrow 
Saul, or Hamlet, or anybody else, all of 
whom are quite apart from him. But I 
am getting egotistic. 



A POET'S PORTFOLIO. 75 

She. No matter. I excuse you. Men 
like to be egotistic, and women like them 
to be so, sometimes, and in some ways. 
There is a sort of implied compliment in 
such conversation, when it does not go 
too far. 

He. Then don't let me go too far. 

She. Never fear ! I will stop you in 
time. You say that these poems seem 
equally good to you while you are writing 
them. 

He. I did not say they seemed equally 
good, but equally true to the person whose 
character I was assuming. Of course 
every one, while he is writing, has a cer- 
tain consciousness that he is doing better 
or worse, and that the expression he is 
giving to his thought or feeling is more 
or less happy and fresh, or the reverse. 
In some moods we are, so to speak, better 
conductors of the influence which inspires 
our work, but that influence itself is be- 
yond our control, and will not respond to 
our beck and call. Any one who has ac- 
quired facility in writing can always, to a 
certain extent, command his powers, and 
■write, as it were, to order. But we are 
not absolute masters of our moods, and 



76 HE AND SHE; OR, 

our faculties at times, despite the spur 
and whip, work unwillingly and like 
drudges; while at other times they carry 
us along freely and gladly, and we feel 
that we are at the height of our speed. 
True poems are not written willfully. Our 
thoughts and even our expressions come 
to us we know not how or whence. The 
mind conceives as the body does, without 
our conscious will. But all its children 
are not equally fair and well-propor- 
tioned. Sometimes the birth is a mon- 
ster, very rarely an angel, and generally a 
very human kind of a thing, with many 
defects and imperfections ; though, what- 
ever it be, it always has a special charm 
and attraction for the parent. 

She. Yes, and the uglier it is the more 
the parent dotes on it. If I were to 
attack what you know to be your worst 
poem, you would be sure at the least to 
apologize for it and plead for it, or else 
insist that it was perhaps (you might go 
so far as to say perhaps) your best. 

He. I might, for I do not tliink any 
author is the best judge of the relative 
value of his works. 

She. Who is, then ? 



A POET'S PORTFOLIO. 77 

He. Posterity, — after the fashion of 
the time is passed. There are many 
shapely arrangements of rags and tags 
which, when new, seem to contain beneath 
them living creatures, but after they are 
defaced or shredded and rotted away by 
time are found to cover nothing but 
wooden and lifeless frames. 

She. Time makes sad havoc even with 
the best of us, and strips from many a 
poet much of his fine draperies of verse 
and singing clothes that so delighted the 
world in his generation. I suppose we 
ought only to admire what has stood the 
test of Time; but what matters it what 
we like, provided we really like some- 
thing ? The great thing is to enjoy what 
we have, without waiting for posterity. 
Besides, however we wait, we never shall 
overtake posterity, and meantime we may 
go hungering and thirsting and empty 
because of our fastidiousness. We cau 
love persons who are not perfect ; why 
not things ? Oh, I do so hate critics v/ho 
are always finding faults and expectiug 
perfection. To hear them talk one would 
think them superior to all the world ; and 
yet I don't know that their poems and 



78 HE AND SHE; OR, 

writings are any better than the worka 
they attack so bitterly. 

He. I like them better when they are 
criticising the works of other men than 
when they fall foul of mine. 

She. Well, I will be a gentle critic, if 
you will read me something more. 

He. But I Avish you to be honest. 

She. I will be as honest as I can be 
consistently with being friendly; but 
friendship interferes terribly with hon- 
esty. 

He. I wonder whether you would like 
this, which I call " Niaa and her Treas- 
ures." Nina is a little peasant girl in 
Tuscany, whom I don't know, whose lover 
has been faithless, and she is looking over 
the little trinkets he gave her. 

Life, since you left me, love, has been but 

a trouble and pain, 
I am always longing and praying to see 

your dear face again. 

Fate has been cruel and hard, and so 
many tears I have shed; 

The heart is an empty nest for the rain, 
when love has fled. 



A POET'S PORTFOLIO. 79 

I am weary, so weary, of life, and the 
bitterest pang of all 

Is to lie and think of the past, that noth- 
ing can ever recall; 

To lie in the dark, and think and soh to 

myself alone, 
Quietly, lest I should waken and grieve 

mamma with my moan. 

Sometimes I stretch myself oat, and think, 

as I lie on my bed. 
Thus it will be with me, when I 'm laid 

out stiff and dead. 

Stay not away, O Death ! Come soon 

and give me my rest, 
With the calm lids over my eyes and my 

arms crossed over my breast. 

Then perhaps he will come, and, gazing 

upon me, say, 
Nina was good, and our love was an hour 

of a sunxmer's day. 

Ah, yes, a day that the clouds overcast, 
ere the morning was done, 

And whose noon was a dreary rain, with 
never a glimpse of sun. 



80 EE AND SHE; OR, 

If he should stoop and kiss my lips, oh. 

if I were dead, 
I think I should start to life, and rise up 

in my bed. 

But what is the use of thinking, with all 

this work to do ? 
Oh, yes, mamma, I hear you; I 'U come 

in a, moment to you. 

What am I domg ? Nothing. I 'm put- 
ting some things away; 

No, — not the trinkets of Gigi. (Madonna, 
forgive me, I pray !) 

Oh, no; you never will throw them into 

the river, I know. 
Just wait till I find my needle, and then 

I '11 come in and sew. 

Oh, this is the hardest of all, — to smile 

and to chatter lies, 
While my heart is breaking and tears 

blind everything to my eyes. 

When will there come an end, Madonna 

mia, — I say, 
When vnll there come an end, and the 

whole world pass away ? 



A POET'S PORTFOLIO. 81 

She. Poor little Nina ! I feel quite sad 
about her. Did he ever come back ? 

He. No ; Nina married another fel- 
low, who owned a cow and had a thou- 
sand francs for a fortune, and — but I 'U 
tell you her story another time. 

She. So Nina was a real person ? 

He. Not in the least; but she might 
have been. 

She. I think for the present we have 
had enough of love ; now read me some- 
thing of a different kind. 

He. No, I must read you one more 
poem about love, as expressing the way 
a man takes his disappointment, just in 
contrast to Nina. You have set me going 
on this track, and I must take one step 
more, and then we will close the book. I 
call it 

A BLACK DAY. 

I thought it was dead; 
That the years had crushed it down and 
trodden it out 
With their cruel tramp and tread; 
That nothing was left but the ^.shes, cold 

and gray. 
Of a love that had whoUy passed away, 



82 EE AND SEE; OR, 

With its hope, and fear, and joy, and 

doubt. 
But nothing utterly dies; 
And again, as I tread the paths of these 

sUent woods, 
Where we walked and loved a few long 

years ago, 
And list to the wind's soft sighs 
Rustling the solitudes, 
.And the low, perpetual hum and welling 

flow 
Of the torrent that finds its way 
And talks to itself among the mossy, 

gray 
And unchanged boulders and stones — 
Again, with a sudden, sharp surprise. 
The old life leaps anew with a rush be- 
fore me: 
The cloud of these dreary years that have 

darkened o'er me 
Lifts and passes, and you are again beside 

me: 
The tones of your voice I hear; I look in 

your tender eyes. 
And I fiercely and vainly long for what is 

denied me. 
And I curse my cruel fate, as I cursed it 

then. 



A POETS PORTFOLIO. 83 

Ah ! what has brought me here to this 
fatal glen ? 

I would that the sky was a globe of frag- 
ile glass, 
That I to atoms might dash it; 

And the flowers, and the trees, and the 
whole wide world around 

Were all at my very feet lying here on 
the ground, 
That I into flinders might pash it. 

With a terrible impotent rage my close- 
clenched hand 

I shake at these pitiless skies that glare 
above. 

And the smothered flame of a wild, de- 
spairing love. 

One breath of the breeze with a sudden 
strength has fanned 
To a world-wide conflagration; 

And I cry in a torture of pain, 

With a cry that is all in vain. 

Come back, come back again. 

And deny me not in my desperation 

The love that I crave, — the love you de- 
nied of yore ! 

Come back and behold me, and into my 
spirit pour 
Some balm of consolation; 



84 HE AND SHE; OR, 

Or strike me dead to the earth, that I no 

more 
May grovel, tortured in spirit and wild 

with grief, 
Looking out all over the world in vain for 

relief. 
Come back, I implore ! 

Curses upon the place, the time, the 
hour, 
When first I met you ; 
Curses upon myself, that am all without 
the power. 
Despite my will, to forget you ! 
Ah, would to God that you for an hour's 
brief space — 
Only an hour — might sufPer as I do ! 
Ah, would to God that you were here 

in my place, 
With the barb in your heart, like a deer 
at the end of the race. 
With naught but despair beside you, 
Nothmg but death and the heartless skies 

above. 
That laugh alike at our joy and our grief 
and our love. 

But no ! ah no ! you are happy and gay, 
and glad. 



A POETS PORTFOLIO. 85 

And what care you for the memories 
dark and sad 
That have ruined my hereafter. 
Brook-like, above my broken hopes that 

lie 
Hidden perchance beneath your memory, 
Your light thoughts run with laughter. 
I see you smiling, — I know you are smil- 
ing still; 
At the fountain of joy you stoop and drink 
your fill, 
Careless whose heart you are breaking. 
But the terrible thirst with which I am 
curst. 
Ah me ! is beyond all slaking; 
For the stream of which I am drinking 
Is a torrent of fire and fierce desire. 
For me there is no more thinking, 
No more hoping, or dreaming, or yearn- 

No more living, and no more laughing. 
Nothing for me but that fountain burning. 
Where my spirit is ever quaffing. 

Curses upon the hour and the place, I say! 
Why did my footsteps lead me here ? 
Will these wild memories never pass 
away? 



86 HE AND SHE; OR, 

Can I never forget you ? Ah, too deax, 

too dear ! 
Never while life shall last, 
Never, ah never, till all the world has 



She. That is not what I should call a 
nice young man. I do not at all approve 
of him. 

He. Poor fellow ! He hlew his brains 
out, a week after, on that same spot. It 
is a curious fact that women never do this, 
— and yet they are always talking of dy- 
ing for love. 

She. They have too much sense to do 
such stupid things. They embroider their 
disappointments into tidies and chair 
backs and table covers, which is far 
more sensible, or net it away into purses 
and shawls and bedquilts. 

He. It is time for us to be going. Shall 
we stroll along ? 

She. No ! One more poem. 

He. No, no ! I have already read you 
too many of these scraps, which after all 
are not worth reading; and besides, the 
day is going. Let us pass the rest of 
it without reading. Let us wander along 
together through tliis glen. 



A POETS PORTFOLIO. 87 

She. No. I must finish embroidering 
this flower first. It will scarcely take me 
a quarter of an hour, and you must now 
read me one more poem; and let it be a 
serious one, — one of your best. 

He. I don't know what is best, and 
what is worst. But if you want a serious 
one, I will read you this. It is a lost ode 
of Horace addressed to Victor. You will 
not fijid it in his printed works. I dis- 
covered it in an old Palimpsest MS., and 
translated it word for word. 

TO VICTOR. 

Nor I, nor thou, with all our seeking, 

know 
Whither, when life is over, we shall go, 
Nor what awaits us on that farther 

shore. 
Hid from our eyes by Acheron's dark flow. 

We only know — and this we must en- 
dure — 

That Death waits for us, whom no prayer 
or lure 
Can move or change; towards whose 
outstretched arms 

Each moment onward drives us, silent, 
sure. 



88 HE AND SHE; OR, 

What he conceals behind that veil he 
draws 

We know not, Victor; but his shadow 
awes 
This life of ours, and in the very- 
height 

Of joy and love he bids us shuddering 



Virtue avails us not, nor wealth, nor 

power. 
To stay one moment the appointed hour. 
Marcellus, Csesar, VirgU, all have 

gone, — 
The fatal sickle reaps grain, bud, and 

flower. 

Where are they now ? Upon some un- 

knoAvn strand 
Shall we again behold them, clasp their 

hand. 
And, untormented by the ills of life, 
Renew our friendship, and together 

stand ? 

Or, when the end is reached, — and come 

it must, — 
Shall we, despite the hope in which we 

trust, 



A POET'S PORTFOLIO. 89 

Feel nothing more, nor love, nor joy, 

nor pain, 
But be at last mere mute, insensate dust ? 
If so, then virtue is a lying snare. 
Let us fill high the bowl, drown sullen 

care, 
Reap the earth's joys and all the joys 

of sense. 
And of Life's bounty seize our fullest 

share. 

The Gods forbid the curious human eye 
Into the Future's mystery to spy. 

They give us hour by hour, and scarcely 
that; 
For, ere the hour is measured, we may die. 

But if thou goest before me where no 

speech, 
No word of friendship, no warm grasp, 

can reach. 
Let me not linger. May the pitying 

Gods 
Send the same final summons unto each ! 

Whether stern Death reach out his hand 

to bless 
Or sweep us down to blank, dire nothing- 



90 HE AND SHE; OR, 

Whate'er may come, together let us go 
Where, at the worst, we shall escape life's 
stress. 

She. Ah, yes ; that is serious enough, 
and sad enough. What have we learned 
since Horace ? How much nearer are we 
to the solving of the eternal riddle that 
ever is taunting us ? What do we know of 
anything ? 

He. Que sfais-jef You know Mon- 
taigne's motto. That is the question one 
always asks. 

She. And the answer is ? 

He. Rien. It is perfectly simple. 

She. Then what is the use of it all? 
To what purpose are all our struggles, aU 
our yearnings, all our failures, all our de- 
feats, since life always at the last ends in 
defeat ? 

He. That depends on what you mean 
by defeat. It is not always the conquer- 
ors who triumph. To act well one's part 
is the triumph. That is the old stoic doc- 
trine so fully illustrated in the life and 
meditations of Marcus Aurelius. Act ac- 
cording to your nature, he says. That 
is what life requires of you. Develop 
Your noble and aspiring principles as the 



A POETS PORTFOLIO. 91 

tree does, which grows up to the sun and 
the sky, and bears its fruit without tri- 
umph, and drops it without regret, and 
gathers its joy out of heaven, seeking not 
to bear the fruit which does not belong to 
it. Even the imperfect has its exquisite 
charm, as the sweetest figs have their 
rinds torn and scratched. It is not the 
smooth which is the best. The trials of 
life have an mfinite value. And now to 
hear the end of the whole matter, let me 
read for you my very last, — a paean for 
the conquered, an lo Victis : — 

10 VICTIS! 

][ SING the hymn of the conquered, who 

fell in the Battle of Life, — 
!rhe hymn of the wounded, the beaten, 

who died overwhelmed in the 

strife ; 
NTot the jubUant song of the victors, for 

whom the resounding acclaim 
Of nations was lifted in chorus, whose 

brows wore the chaplet of fame. 
But the hymn of the low and the humble, 

the weary, the broken in heart. 
Who strove and who failed, acting bravely 

a silent and desperate part; 



92 HE AND SEE; OR, 

Whose youth bore no flower on its 

branches, whose hopes burned in 

ashes away, 
From whose hands slipped the prize they 

had grasped at, who stood at the 

dying of day 
With the wreck of their life all around 

them, unpitied, unheeded, alone. 
With Death swooping down o'er their 

failure, and aU but their faith 

overthrown. 

WhUe the voice of the world shouts its 
chorus, — its paean for those who 
have won; 

While the trumpet is sounding triumph- 
ant, and high to the breeze and 
the sun 

Glad banners are waving, hands clapping, 
and hurrying feet 

Thronging after the laurel-crowned vic- 
tors, I stand on the field of de- 
feat. 

In the shadow, with those who are fallen, 
and wounded, and dying, and 
there 

Chant a requiem low, place my hand on 
their pain-knotted brows, breathe 
a prayer. 



A POET'S PORTFOLIO. 93 

Hold the hand that is helpless, and whis- 
per, " They only the victory win, 

Who have fought the good fight, and have 
vanquished the demon that tempts 
us witliiu; 

Who have held to their faith unseduced 
by the prize that the world holds 
on high; 

Who have dared for a high cause to suf- 
fer, resist, fight, — if need be, to 
die." 

Speak, History ! who are Life's victors ? 

Unroll thy long annals, and say. 
Are they those whom the world called the 

victors — who won the success of a 

day? 
The martyrs, or Nero ? The Spartans, 

who fell at Thermopylae's tryst. 
Or the Persians and Xerxes ? His judges 

or Socrates ? Pilate or Christ ? J 

She. Thank you. That is a consolation 
to us who do not win the laurel. 



'He poem he was then scribbling when 



94 HE AND SHE; OR, 

she interrupted him, he did not read. 
But he afterwards sent it to her, and as it 
describes the glen where the conve sation 
took place, it may as well be added to 
those he really read. 

IN THE GLEN. 

Here in this cool, secluded glen 
Alone with Nature let me lie, 
Where no rude voice or peering eyes of 
men 
Disturbs its perfect peace and privacy ; 
Where through the swaying firs the rest- 
less breeze 
Sighs softly and the murmuring tor- 
rent flows, 
Singing the same low song as on it goes, 
That it hath sung for countless centuries ; 
Now welling through the mossy rocks, 

now spilled 
In little sparkling falls, now lingering, 
stilled. 
In brown, deep pools to hold the mirrored 

skies. 
As brown, as clear, as some fair maiden's 

eyes, 
And filled like them with silent mysteries. 



A POET'S PORTFOLIO. 95 

One side the shelving slopes, through 

which its song 
The torrent sings, the fii-s' tall columns 

throng, 
Spreadmg their dark green tops against 

the blue ; 
And on the brown, fine carpet at their 

feet 
Long strips and flecks of sun strike glim- 
mering through, 
Where gleaming specks of insects 

through them fleet. 
Along the other slope green beeches spread 
Their spotted canopy of light and shade, 
And on the brown, transparent stream 

below 
Their quivering, tessellated pavement 

throw. 

Here ferns and bracken spread their 

plumy spray ; 
Here the wild rose gropes out against the 

gray 
Moss -cushioned rocks, and o'er the torrent 

swings ; 
Here o'er the bank the sombre ivy strings, 
And the scorned thistle bears its royal 



96 EE AND SHE; OR, 

Here wild clematis stretches, wavering 
down ; 

And, 'mii a mass of tangled weeds that 
know 

Scarcely a name, and all neglected grow, 

A tribe o£ gracious flowers peeps smiling 
up: 

The humble dandelion, buttercup, 

And spindled gorse here show their gleam- 
ing gold ; 

The bright-eyed daisy, innocently bold. 

Stars the lush green ; the purple malva 
lifts 

Its spreading cup. From tufted black- 
berries drifts 

A snow of blossoms, scenting with their 
breath 

The summer air ; and, sacred to St. John, 

The magic flower that maidens cull at 
dawn ; 

And blue f orgot-me-nots, scarce seen be- 
neath 

The feathery grass ; and the white hem- 
lock's face ; 

And all the wild, untrained, and happy 
race 

Of Nature's children, through whose 
blooms the bees, 

Busy for honey hovering, hum and tease. 



A POETS PORTFOLIO. 97 

Softened, by distance, from the woods 

remote, 
Rings, now and then, the blackbird's li- 
quid note ; 
Or the jay scolds, or far up in the sky 
Trills out the lark's long, quivering mel- 
ody ; 
Or, its melodious passion pouring out, 
In the green shadow hid, the nightingale 
Stills all the world to listen to its tale, 
The same sweet tale that centuries past it 

sung 
To Grecian ears, when Poesy was young ; 
Or the glad goldfinch tunes his tremulous 

throat, 
Or with a sudden chirp some linnet gray 
Darts up the gorge, to driak at these cool 

springs, 
And at a glimpse of me flits swift away. 

A faint, fine hum of myriad quivering 

wings 
Fills all the air ; the idle butterfly 
Drifts down the glen ; and through the 

grasses low 
Creep swarms of busy creatures to and 

fro, 
And have their loves, and joys, and strife 

and hate. 



98 HE AND SHE} OR, 

Intent upon a life to us unknown. 

On the o'erhanging bowlders glance and 

gleam 
Quick, quivering lights reflected from 

the stream, 
Where water-spiders poise and darting 

skate, 
Their shadows on its dappled sand-floor 

thrown. 
Across the bowlders bare and pine-slopes 

brown, 
Like dials of the day that passes by, 
The firs' long shadow-index silently, 
So silently, is ever stealing on, 
We scarcely heed the unpausing race of 

time 
So swift and noiseless ; and some subtle 

spell 
Seems to have lulled to sleep this shadowy 

dell. 
As if it lay in some enchanted clime, 
Haunted by dreams that never poet's 

rhyme 
Nor music's voice to waking ears can tell. 

All is so peaceful here that weary thought 
Half falls asleep, nor seeks to find the key 
Of the pervading, unsolved mystery 



A POET'S PORTFOLIO. 9& 

rhrough which we move, by which our 

life is wrought. 
Here, magnetized by Nature, if the eye 
Upglaneing should discern in the soft 

shade 
Some Dryad's form, or, where the waters 

braid 
Their silvery windings, haply should 

descry 
Some naked Naiad leaning on the rocks, 
Her feet dropped in its basin, while her 

locks 
She lifts from off her shoulders unafraid, 
And gazes round, or looks into the cool 
Tranced mirror of the softly-gleaming 

pool. 
To see her polished limbs and bosom bare 
And sweet, dim eyes and smile reflected 

there, 
'T would scarce seem strange, but only as 

it were 
A natural presence, natural as yon rose 
That spreads its beauty careless to the air, 
And knows not whence it came nor why 

it grows, 
And just as simply, innocently there ; 
The sweet presiding spirit of some tree. 
The soul indwelling in the murmuring 

brook, 



100 HE AND SHE; OB, 

Whose voice we hear, whose form we can- 
not see, 
On whom, at last, 't is given us to look ; 
As if dear Nature for a moment's space 
Lifted her veil and met us face to face. 

Such Grecian thought is false to our rude 

sense. 
That naught believes, or feels, or hears, or 

sees 
Of what the world in happier days of 

Greece 
Felt with a feeling gentle and intense. 
We are divorced from Nature ; our dull 

ears 
Catch not the music of the finer spheres. 
See not the spirits that in Nature dwell 
In leafy groves through which they glanc- 
ing look, 
In the dim music of the singing brook, 
And lurk half hidden and half audible. 
To us the world is dead. The soul of 

things, 
The life that haunts us with imaginings. 
That lives, breathes, throbs in all we hear 

and see. 
The charm, the secret hidden everywhere^ 
Evades all reason, spurns philosophy, 



A POETS PORTFOLIO. 101 

And scorns by boasting science to be 

tracked. 
Hunt as we will all matter to the end, 
Life flits before it ; last, as first, we find 
Naught but dead structure and the dust 

of fact ; 
The infiuoite gap we cannot apprehend, 
The somewhat that is life — the inform- 
ing mind. 

Even here in this still glen I cannot flee 
The secret that torments us everywhere. 
In cloud, sky, rock, tree, man, its mystery 
Pursues us ever to the same despair. 
What says this brook, that ever murmur- 
ing flows ? 
What whisper these tall trees that talk 

alway ? 
What secret hides the perfume of this 

rose? 
What is it that dear Nature strives to 

say? 
Our sense is dull, we cannot understand 
The voice we hear — but, oh ! so far "away 
As from a world beyond our night and 

day, 
A dream-voice from some dim, imagined 
land. 



102 BE AND SHE; OR, 

Here dreaming on in idle, tranquil moodf 
Lulled by the tune that Nature softly 

plays, 
Our wandering thoughts, by some strange 

spell subdued, 
Are calmed and stilled, and all seems 

sweet and good, 
And she our mother seems, that on heir 



With murmuring voice, and gentle, whis- 
pering ways. 

Hushes her child within her arms to rest ; 

And, though the child scarce knoweth 
what she says. 

He feels her presence gently o'er him 
brood. 

And yet, O Nature, thou no mother art, 
But for a moment, like to this, at best 
A stern step-mother thou, that to thy heart 
Claspest thy child by some caprice pos- 



Then, careless of his fate, abandonest, 
Flinging him off from thee to wail and cry, 
All heedless if he live or if he die. 
Is it for us thou, reckless, squanderest 
Thy beauty with such wide and lavish 
waste ? 



A POETS PORTFOLIO. 103 

For us ? Ah ! no ; were we all swept 

away, 
What wouldst thou care ? No change 

upon thy face 
Would answer to our sorrow or disgrace, 
Alike to those who love, laugh, weep, or 

pray. 
Glares not the sun impertinent upon 
Our darkest griefs ? Do not the glad 

flowers blow, 
The unpausing hours, days, seasons come 

and go, 
Despite our joys and loves ? To all our 

woe 
Have we a sympathetic answer ever 

won? 
Are thy stones softer on the path we 

tread 
Because our thoughts are journeying with 

the dead ? 
Is not this world, with all its beauty, rife 
With endless war, death preying upon 

life. 
Perpetual horror, pain, crime, discord, 

strife, 
Night chasing day, storms driving auB- 

shine out ? 
And yet through all impassive, stem, and 

«old. 



104 HE AND SHE; OR, 

With folded hands, which hide whate'er 

they hold, 
Like Nemesis, thou standest, speaking 

not. 
Before the gates of Fate ; and, if they 

ope, 
To show one glimpse beyond, one gleam 

of hope, 
'T is but an instant ; then the door b 

shut ; 
And, poor, blind creatures, here astray 

we grope, 
Stretching our hands out where we can- 
not see, 
Through the dark paths of this world's 

mystery. 

And yet, why spoil the day with thoughts 
like these ? 

Better to lie beneath these whispering 
trees 

And take the joy the moment gives, and 
feel 

The glad, pure day, the gently lifting 
breeze 

That steals their odors from the uncon- 
scious flowers. 

Nor seek what Nature never will reveal. 



A POET'S PORTFOLIO. 105 

The hidden secret of our destinies. 

Let it all go — whate'er it is it is, 

And, come what wUl, this day, at least, ia 

ours. 
My hour is gone, dear glen, and now 

farewell. 
Here you the self-same song, bright 

brook, will sing ; 
Here you, dark firs, the self-same tale; 

will tell, 
Mysterious, to the low wind whispering,, 
How many a summer day to other ears, 
When I am gone, beyond all doubts,, 

hopes, fears, 
Beyond all sights and sounds of this fair- 
world. 
Into the dim beyond ; in time to come 
WUl many a dreamer sit for many an.' 

hour. 
Lulled by your murmur, and the insects' 

hum. 
And many a poet praise you. Clasped 

and curled 
Beside these rocks, and plucking some 

chance flower, 
Will many a pair of lovers linger, dumb 
With loves too much for utterance, all 

too weak 



£06 HE AND SHE, OR, 

The charm they feel, the joy they own, to 

speak. 
Here wandering from the noisy city's 



How many an idle, casual visitor 

Thy beauty with a careless tone will 
praise, 

And turn away without one true heart- 
stir. 

Here the dull woodman, thinking but of 
gain. 

Heedless of any Dryad's shriek of pain, 

Will fell with ringing axe this living 
wood ; 

And here some gentle child, o'er whom 
the dream 

And lingering lights of former being 
brood. 

Perchance may meet some Naiad at this 
stream. 

By whom her language shall be under- 
stood, 

And here together they will talk and 
play. 

And many a secret she will strive to 
tell 

That here she learns, and all the \f orld 
will say, 



A POETS PORTFOLIO. 107 

Laughing : " Dear child, this is not cred- 
ible." 

Ah Heaven ! we know so much who 
nothing know ! 

Only to children and in poets' ears, 

At whom the wise world wondering 
smiles and sneers. 

Secrets of God are whispered here be- 
low. 

Only to them, and those whose gentle 
heart 

Is opened wide to list for Beauty's call. 

Win Nature lean to whisper the least 
part 

Of that great mystery which circles all. 

The wise, dull world, with solid facts con- 
tent. 

Laughs at all dreamers, deeming nothing 
good 

Save what is touched, seen, handled, un- 
derstood. 

Well, let it laugh ! To me the firmament 

Is more than gleaming lights ; more than 
mere wood 

These leafy groves ; and more these mur- 
muring streams 

Than running waters. This wide, vapor- 
ous sky, 



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